ANT COLONY ALGORITHM FOR THE PROBLEM OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL PACKING WITH ROTATION

This work proposes a fast method to solve the three-dimensional packing problem (3D-BPP) with item rotation using the Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm. 3D-BPP is a classic combinatorial optimization problem considered NP-difficult. The developed method has several characteristics that allow its efficient adaptation to different contexts, including from small to large instances, in addition to dealing well with very heterogeneous items. The effectiveness of the proposal was evaluated through test instances widely used in the literature, involving several combinations of box sizes and items. Despite not achieving the best known results in all instances, the algorithm demonstrated consistent competitive performance, with execution times considerably lower than existing methods.